Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Same old story – it is not what you know, but who you know that counts.

People can’t measure performance. Let me restate that one – people don’t want to measure performance. That is too much work.

Instead, people go to their feelings. They ask, “When I consider Dwayne’s performance, do I like him?” They do not ask, “What is the quality of product given me by Dwayne?”

This all goes back to,

It is not what you know, but who you know that counts.

I hate that. I truly hate that. The trouble is, that seems to be reality.

I noticed this many times in my 25+ years working in government. We had “promotion panels” or what I called “demotion panels.” Groups of people, a.k.a, a committee, would meet to discuss employees and their performance. Oooops, I wrote performance. Let’s change that to “meet to discuss employees” period.

The final answer was to the question, “Does someone in the room know and like the person under consideration?”

Hence, promotions were not determined by performance. They were determined by sponsorship. Who in the room was sponsoring the person for promotion? How well did they speak? What position of authority did they occupy?